It's All Relative

But wait, really.....

it's THAT SMALL!!!!!!

Oh How Crafty

so i realized my blog was getting a little wordy so i took a picture of my recent craft projects.
on the right is my legging i am currently knitting, and on the left the ornaments that i am making (courtesy of Martha Stewart)
both clearly still in the first stages of developement but i'm hoping to have both done for christmas.
my roommate moved in, it's odd to always have someone around now. always there, in your stuff, there, it's just weird. i mean i like it, but i'm still adjusting.
the good part about it is that today when i said "mass is at noon and there's confession before" she responded with "perfect then we can get there at 11:30" having that extra support/encouragement is so awesome and i didn't even know how much i missed it. but a lot of our college friends came in so i should get back to my guests, just wanted to update you on my crafting status. oh and by the way kell, i have recieved more than one compliment on my little sewing maching. everyone thinks it, and consequently me, are adorable. so thank you.

My Monthly Newsletter

well guys, no more 3 am blogging for a few weeks. last night was my last night shift till sometime in the new year.
thank goodness
i HATE night shift with a passion.
i hate having to tiptoe in and out of rooms, i feel like i'm sneaking around. half the time these kids come in overnight and the doc orders medications and treatments for them after the family falls asleep and then what do you do? do you wake up this sleep deprived parent to let them know what you're about to do even though 9 times out of 10 they are so out of it when you do wake them up that they don't understand you. or do you just hold your breath and hope you don't wake anybody up?
i usually just hold my breath.
i was going to steal a blood pressure cuff from the hospital today so that i could take a picture of it for you all, but it was the only blood pressure cuff small enough for my patient who was transferred out of the NICU. seriously, around my thumb, it fit around my thumb.
sometimes the central supply people for the hospital accidently send us blood pressure cuffs that are really supposed to go to the NICU, when we get to many we'll give them out to kids for their stuffed animals so that they can take their stuffed animals BP. unfortunately today we only had the one so i couldn't steal it.
funny story, the other day i had purchased a bottle with a little spigit at the top for my dish washing soap, it looks prettier than bottle of dawn (actually i got that idea from kelly) anyways, it was a cheap bottle with a cheap plastic top that eventually popped out unbeknownst to me and fell down my garbage disposal. long story short i bought a new (nicer) bottle and poured the soap from old bottle A into new bottle B. not really wanting to wash out the bottle i just tossed it in the dishwasher, thinking i had cleverly averted an obnoxious chore.
uhm, not so. i walked into my kitchen about 15 minutes later only to find the floor COVERED IN SOAP SUDS!!!!!!! and more pouring out from the bottom of the dishwasher. my heart absolutely stopped beating and i was pretty sure that i had broken not only the dishwasher, ruined the floor, but i would most likely be evicted from my apartment for causing so much damage in so short a time.
it was horrible, and rather like a cartoon, all at the same time. i tried jumping to the little mat in front of the sink (the only dry spot left in the kitchen) only to find that it wasn't dry and i went flying across the floor. thankfully my refridgerator is very sturdy.
i battled my way back to the dishwasher and grabbed a giant mixing bowl to scoop the suds into the sink. it was a losing battle though. eventually i had to find every towel i ever owned to use to barricade the bubbles in the kitchen and then i just started scooping bubbles, once the sink was filled i got a bucket and started toating loads out to my bathtub while the sink was being rinsed free of bubbles. hindsight is 20/20 and i now most sincerly regret that i didn't take a picture of it but at the time i was freaking out more than a little and i had to leave for work in the next hour so i didn't really feel like i had that kind of time to be photo-logging the latest adventure in Kate's Adventures in Domesticity.
in other news, today is my last day as a single care-free girl living alone in the big city (ok, the big suburbs) today, Dec 5th, 2007 i get a roommate.
i was thinking about it and it's been almost 2 years since i last had a steady kind of roommate. i was living in Ecuador...wow, it's kind of a little bit scary to think about having someone else move into my apartment, scary but i'm excited. and actually this is a good friend of mine from college and we lived in a house together there so i'm not to nervous.
anywho, it's now 1 in the afternoon and i actually worked last night so i should probably go take a nap. i've had a hard time inwinding from this last shift, i think because of the new roommate and also it's snowing like crazy outside and i get a little nervous driving in the snow so i've been running around trying to get as many errands as possible done before the snow gets to bad.
but i went shopping, the post office and target so i think i'm set for the next few days.

how to have fun in virginia

i decided to go on an adventure with friends and hike up Old Rag one last warm weekend in october. "a 5 hour hike with "rock scrambles" and "panoramic views"."

i should known better that when people use phrases like those to describe something, then more than likely they have never experienced it themselves.

it was actually a lot of fun, but i did truly think i was going to die the next day. i hurt so much... down to my very finger tips that i had used just the day before to grip for dear life and scale boulders during part of the famous "rock scramble" (i may be exagerating that last part but there really were some parts that i was more than little concerened about, i felt like people like me probably shouldn't be allowed up without a safety harness)

me, victorious at the end of the "scramble"



i don't really feel like the picture needs any explanation.

i'm not asleep

still on night shift, hence the 3am blogging.

the heat is broken here on our floor...it's so cold!!!! i have been begging the engineering dept. to bring us up some space heaters for the kids but they keep claiming that they will have the heat fixed in a few more minutes. this has been going on for the last few hours though so i'm growing less and less convinced that this is true.

i felt so bad because i had to change a diaper and the poor little guy was so cold, i went and got him a little knitted hat and booties and bundled him up good afterwards but still, it was a cold 3 minutes.

i have perfected my diaper changing skills so that i can change a poo filled diaper (or any kind of diaper really) in about 60 seconds. factor in the re-bundling and outfit change it's almost like a superhuman power.

i know i'm writing to an audience of mostly moms with multiple children for the most part but hey for a 25 year old single girl these are some "mad skills" to possess. that's street lingo for "an impressive talent" which i learned from the last 10 year old i hung out with (the last 10 year old and also my sister).

i have also fine tuned my hearing to that of mothers who can distinguish their child's cry apart from an entire screaming room of children, now i can hear a pump or monitor beeping and just by listening i can tell you if it's mine. and my super ears are telling me...yup, that one's mine...and the baby's hungry. seriously, i feel if you have to eat every 3 hours you should at least have the courtesy not to burp like a 20 something frat boy who just won a beer chugging contest.

it's 3:30 am, what are you doing?

so i'm actually currently at work, probably shouldn't advertise that but it's 3:30 am and i have no meds to give and everyone is alive and breathing so for the next 30 minutes i have nothing to do. and actually in 30 minutes i'll have a full 15-20 minutes of work and then nothing until 6:00 am at which point i will give my last medication of the night and then sit around and wait for the day shift to show up at 7:30. i truly dislike night shift. it's all a bunch of hurry up and wait.

so yesterday i talked to the PICU manager and she as formally as she could, she offered me the job. she told me i'd need to contact nursing recruiting to find out my new salary but i'm pretty sure it's more than i make now so that's kind of exciting. she did tell me that i'll need to become chemo certified which freaks me out. i am terrified of taking care of oncology patients let alone putting toxic chemicals through a central line. one thing that made me feel better though is that she told me that if there is ever an really sick kid in the PICU with all kinds of drips and pressors and tubes and such then they will assign 2 nurses to that patient. life is much less scary when you have a buddy.

work here is horrendous right now. the burn out rate for nurses is something like less than 5 years...i'm shocked it's that long. seriously, if our patients were always like the ones we have right now i would quit. i would be back in Ecuador before you could even say "¿Dónde fue ella?". last night i cried when i walked it every one of my patients' room. you really need to remember to pray when you work in a place like this otherwise....it would be unbearable.

well, my thirty minutes are up. i have extremely important work to go do...that will hopefully take longer than 10 minutes! it's all about killing time on night shift.

Keeping Up Appearances

Lately i've been feeling a little worn down, the spirits have been somewhat depressed you could say. after going to confession at work the other week i've really been trying to not let the difficulty of the job affect the care i give. like fr, anthony told me, i'm bringing something special to these kids, something that not everyone else in the hospital brings them, i just need to keep reminding myself that, otherwise i end up coming home looking like this picture!

so life has been quite busy lately, i know i'm horrible at posting but i promise to try harder. there's a lot of things in my life i'm going to try harder at. one is that i have finally joined a gym.

HIGHLY overrated this being "in shape" what is that any way? when the trainer at the gym asked me what my goals were i told him that it was to have the strength and endurance to hike through the jungles of third world countries. that seemed like an acceptable goal but it seems that Bally's Total Fitness does not have a specific exercise plan for training future missionaries. odd.

i have had a lot of visitors as well in the last month or so, first a good friend from college, then erin and lucia (which was so much fun guys!) and then just this past week my friend who had lived with me down in Ecuador. i love mary dearly but we always have the worst luck when we're together. i swear, if only MTV made a reality show about us...let's just say Real World's got nothing on us! and this past week was no exception. my car got towed! we were leaving the museum of natural history to go back to my car when i noticed oh so many cars along constitution ave. being towed, i started to become a little nervous and so, started walking a little faster. we were finally within eyesight of my car... and the tow truck in front of it, and i started running screaming "that's my car! where are you going?!!" the truck driver was good enough to stop and give me the address of the place it was being towed to. i asked him "what am i supposed to do? i'm not even from here?" and he told me "catch a cab, they all know where we are located" evil bastard. reason number 5,679 to hate DC. and so it was that as i watched my beloved daewoo being dragged through the streets mary and i hailed a cab driven be the nicest jamaican cabbie ever. when we got to the place he insisted on giving us directions back to constitution and then waited at the side of the road until i had my car back. he even was going to wave half of the cab fee when an oversight led us to hand him a $5 instead of a $10. the first truly nice person i've met since i moved here. he said it was because he's really from jamaica and not DC. and so, a $100 ticket later and a trip to the SE portion of DC later, the daewoo and i were reunited hardly the worse for ware. and mom, dad, if there is an inexplicable bill for towing sent to the house please direct it back here and i'm sorry for the inconvenience

also i have noticed that there are far to many smells in my life, i go to the hospital and am exposed to all kinds of foul repulsive smells, then i come home and it seems like i have a different cleaner for every different object in my apartment, and lotions and perfumes and laundry detergent etc. why? there is no need for so many different smells in one life and so it is that i have decided to simplify. i've just become so overwhelmingly nauseated by smells that this has become an necessity rather than a choice. so there it is, i have developed an allergy to smells.

in the work aspect of life i am still very much as i was. over worked and under paid. just kidding, to an extent. i do love my job but it can be very trying at times. i have heard from the PICU here and they have told me that i would be able to make the move in febuary. this is exciting but very intimidating. can i really be a PICU nurse? this means a lot more than i currently deal with. this means life and death and vents and ECMO and serious ethical questions. the question that most frequently comes to mind though, is am i smart enough? but i know that this is a ridiculous doubt, a fear of the unknown more than anything else.

tomorrow is anther day and i have to go to work again. i had off today which was wonderful, highly unusual but a welcome change of pace when i usually have to work every other weekend and this time around i only have to work this sunday.

no hables espanol?

it's october and i haven't posted in a month, guess it's about time to make my annual appearance.
tada!!
that's right, i'm still alive.
was at work today, made it to mass which is always a plus.
you never know when you work in the hospital whether or not you're going to be able to make it to mass or not. sometimes i don't. it makes me pretty sad when i don't, but today i did.
i even got to go to confession which was awesome.
i love the priest at the hospital. he really takes the time to get to know people and offer spiritual direction and tries to call all of us heathens on to be better people.
i do have to go back to work in exactly 7 hours though, so i am off to bed.
just wanted to let everyone know i'm still alive.
adios mis amigos.

From the Mouths of Babes

the explanation behind this photo is that Finney was generously sharing his lunch with me...after he had taken it out of his mouth...and chewed it.

what you can't see, although perhaps have already inferred, is that he was quite successful in his attempt. the pre-chewed Gerber meatstick is in fact in my mouth. how sweet

When Moths Attack

So i had a horribly frightening experience the last time i left my house.

a large moth flew at me and tried to attack me, luckily i was on my work and had my stethoscope handy to use as a weapon.

though this is not a picture of the exact moth that attacked me it is a good representation of how truly hideous he was

the moth did escape unharmed but i'm pretty sure he'll think twice before coming near me again.

To Lisa:

I'm still alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i have to go to work in 5 hours so please enjoy this picture of a giraffe

~me

Deep Thoughts, by Finney

"When we consider how the Fibonacci Series relates to music you must think of our "octave":
It's made up of 12 + 1 (13 including the octave) chromatic tones.
We consider the semi-tone (1) and whole tone (2 semi-tones) to be building blocks of diatonic scales.
Pentatonic scales are 5 tones.
Diatonic scales are 8 tones.
The 1st, 3rd, and 5th tones in the diatonic scale are the building blocks of root chords.
I could go on to demonstrate the influence that the Fibonacci series has had in music...but it's likely better (if you're not convinced) to trust me that i know what i'm talking about"

A Journey's End

Maggie fought the good fight, she finished the race and yesterday evening Maggie passed away.

I was able to see her to say goodbye and mourn with her parents and family for a short time this morning.

We will all miss Maggie but we take comfort in knowing she's no longer suffering and is now up in Heaven praying for us all.




“He called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him"

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!!!

So we went out to Annapolis for the 4th and not only were there fireworks but there was a parade....WITH CAMPER VANS!!!!!! i now believe that a 4th of July parade cannot be complete with out a string of camper vans, especially vans with white bear skin rugs, champagne glasses and pillows that say "Big Mac".

beacuase nothing says American pride like a 1/2 mile string of campers vans

Updates

so it's been a month...my bad yo. in my defense, i have been THINKING about blogging.

as many of you know, i've been a bit preoccupied lately by one of my patients at the hospital. she's actually no longer my patient since she's now in the ICU but i've become close with the family so i've become somewhat territorial of them. Maggie is still very sick and the family is asking for all your prayers. she's been close to dying more than once now and she still has a very long road ahead of her, not only does she need to recover from this last open heart surgery but she will need a liver transplant in the very near future. so please pray for her and her family.

other than that not to much has been going on, i went to New York a few weekends ago. I went to both visit one of my good friends and also to look into a possible job at the Children's Hospital there in manhattan. it was a great visit with mary and i had so much fun but all my plans for going to the hospital totally fell through. it's still a possibility for the future but for right now i think i want to go into ICU nursing and if i moved to new york i'd have to take a position on a med/surg floor like i'm working on now. not a bad thing but it would throw off my 5 year plan.

oh that's right folks, i have a 5 year plan. 1 year of med/surg nursing, 2 years of ICU nursing, 2 years of OR nursing and then volunteer again. i'm hoping to go back to Ecuador to volunteer but i would go anywhere really. after that we'll see. i was thinking of going back to school for anesthesiology but that will depend on how well i like the OR. actually all i really want to do is work around the world volunteering. i hear the sudan needs nurses...

nothing else new, Kelly, Dan and the boys are coming out on friday, 5 of us in my 1 bedroom apartment... things should be very interesting! i'm actually really excited because i love getting to spend time with them and there are plenty of things to keep us busy outside the house so that we won't be on top of each other all the time. and as an added bonus for us all i finally got my air-conditioning fixed.

the A/C has been broken for close to a month now, basically ever since the weather started getting hot. but i've been out of town on the weekends and working so i really haven't thought about it too much, then the other day it was about 85 out and oh so humid and i decided to go for a run and walking back into my apartment felt a little like walking into my own personal sauna and it was then and there that i called to have them fix the air. i just envisioned hot cranky babies all weekend and it was not a good image. but as things are now a comfortable 78 degrees i don't have anything else to do except possibly clean my bathroom

my latest adventure

so as you may know i have to rotate days and nights. not my favorite thing but thankfully only two weeks out of each month. anywho, on my last night it was about 4:30 almost 5 in the morning and i had to run a blood sample down to the lab (usually during the day we have specific staff who go around picking up samples to take back down to the lab but overnight we have to run it down ourselves, that said, i often wonder who are the people who apply for a job where their sole function is to run samples of bodily fluids from one place to another?)
so as a general courtesy i let everyone know i was leaving the floor and would be able to run whatever errands they needed. i was instantly bombarded with requests and so off i went with my list in hand:

*central supply for a dressing for Korri
*diet coke from the vending machine for Emily
*lab for me

i decided to go to central first as it was on the first floor and i could just work my way back upstairs after getting the supplies i needed.
opting to take the elevators instead of the stairs for safety reasons i absentmindedly got on the first one that opened on my floor (first mistake of my ill-fated journey). as the doors closed i had this vague feeling of uneasiness as i realized that i was on the "slow" elevator but i shook it off and told myself it was fine, i had told everyone if i wasn't back in 15 minutes they were to come looking for me, a joke of course but at the same time i meant it and they knew it.

as the elevator neared to the first floor i noticed a funny sound, kind of like a chinking/grating type noise. not being well versed in elevator maintenance i wasn't entirely positive but i was pretty sure that this was not a good noise.

then i noticed that i was no longer going down, but back up.

what was this?

i started hitting buttons in an attempt to stop the elevator but to no avail, it just kept fluctuating between floors but not stopping!

i had no idea what to do, i pushed every button i could and the elevator kept going.

after what felt like an eternity but in reality was about 5 minutes i was reaching for the phone in the elevator when i saw that i had not pushed the button to the 4th floor. i closed my eyes, said a little prayer and hit 4. i sensed the elevator moving now upwards but with what seemed like a purpose. the doors opened and i lept out feeling a sense of freedom i've never experienced. i was still a little leery of taking the steps in a dark hospital in the middle of the night so i hit the down arrow and waited and in a bank of 6 different elevators which one came back up? the one i had just escaped from. after that i took the stairs regardless of the creepy factor.

oh but wait, it doesn't end there.

once i finally made it down to central supply to pick up the dressing Korri needed, i couldn't get anyone inside to open the door. i kept ringing the bell but nothing. eventually some of the guys who were cleaning the floors a little ways down the hall told me i could get inside but another door.
this other door opened into a part of central supply i had never seen before, i kept calling out but no one answered me. as i walked on into the labyrinth of various medical paraphernalia the thought that i should probably just give up and call it a night did cross my mind but after the adrenaline rush of my earlier brush with death i just couldn't. so i kept going. and going. and going

so there i was, lost in the hospital's central supply at 4:30 in the morning. i kept calling out but literally only heard my echo in return.

i could not believe this was happening, first the elevator now lost? as i wandered through the sections of diapers, i couldn't help but see what an opportunity i had in my hands. to be unsupervised in central supply was like turning a fat kid loose on an all you can eat buffet.

eventually i did wander into the section i knew so i picked up the supplies i was asked to get and then just a few more i felt would be useful to us nurses on the floor. after that i headed to the vending machine for Emily and then to the lab.

as i finally walked back onto the floor a full half an hour after i said i'd be back, i felt my pager go off. i checked the message and saw that i had been missed. evidently i had been gone for 45 minutes and a search party was being organized if i didn't call them back.

next time i think i'll just wait till someone else volunteers to go off the floor.

who say's that?

i'm sure i've been noticable absent from my blogging but i've been back on nights this last week, this week too.


i dislike working nights mostly because i can't get back on to a normal schedule as soon as i'm done. i worked wednesday, thursday, friday night last week and i'm still finding that i can't sleep through the night. that said i can't really sleep in the day either, it's more like a series of naps where i always feel more tired when i wake up then when i went to bed. on the bright side only 2 more shifts before i get to go back on days.


last time i was at work one of the patient's on the floor invited me to her birthday party. of course i'm not exactly sure where "Deja house" is, so that might make getting there a little difficult but she seemed fairly confident in my abilities to get there.

I have never met anyone like this child. we had her up at the nurses station because she woke up at 5am and proceeded to watch tv, call her nurse in, go to the bathroom about a thousand times. this wouldn't have been a problem except that she had a roommate who really wanted to sleep. so we just brought her up to the desk with us and she entertained us for the next 2 hours. this child must have the soul of a 90 year old woman who's lived through 2 world wars, raised 15 children, and had to grow her own food and sew her own clothes her whole life. what adds to it is the fact that she's always had problem with her ears and now she's almost deaf in one of them so you have to practically yell for her to hear you (this was understandably another reason her roommate wanted her out of the room!)

at one point she turns to me and says, or rather yells "you know what katie, sometimes the kids at school make fun of me and it doesn't bother me. it doesn't bother me katie, you know why? because i know that they're just jealous. they're jealous because i have the beautty and they want it too. my mommy always tells me that if someone says something mean about you it's only because they don't feel good about themselves. there's a lot of kids at my school who don't feel good about themselves"

then there were many discussions on how if dr. craig wanted to come to her birthday he had to take her on a date first. and it had to be a cruise. and when the doctor asked if he did all that then could he come to her party she told him it all depended on how well he treated her. if he didn't treat her right the he could "forget it" because her mama told her "don't settle for a man who don't treat you like the queen you are"!!!! it's these moments that make me love my job so much. you don't have these conversations anywhere else.


so since i'm awake and my apartment is disgusting i should probably go and clean it. it hasn't been done in a while and there's some kind of funk coming from the kitchen, all very good reasons for me to go and clean.

big events

with my thoughtlessness and work schedule it happens that i'm behind a few events; i will now send out my congratulations to mike and kayleen!!!

and a happy birthday to pat and mike!!! 22 years old and i can still kick their asses, though they don't like to admit it

won't you be my neighbor?

just when i was starting to miss Seattle and all it's new-age hippie wackiness, i walk out my door to find this across the hall.
like a little slice of home in the middle of the über yuppie suburbs of DC.

happy anniversary to me

these are some pictures from my life in Ecuador:

~this is a vacation to Baños on the left and the pic directly above is a view from the roof of our first apartment way up in the northern part of Quito

~this is me eating a typical fruit called Tuna, fyi if someone tells you that you should try a fruit named tuna and your better judgement tells you that you shouldn't, listen to your better judgement. (note that the rubber gloves are not a fashion statement in this photo but a part of the safety equipment needed to eat this fruit)

~this is a picture from the new apartment we moved into that truly was in Quito as opposed to our other apartment where cab drivers refused to take us and friends would never visit because it was so far away. here we were finally within walking distance to the hospital, a grocery store (real one not a small curbside tienda), a church that wasn't surrounded by packs of rabid dogs, and our friends were actually willing to pick us up or just stop by.

~here is the Good Friday procession through El Centro, the guys dressed in purple are part of the brotherhood Cucuruchos and basically are penitents who walk the procession carrying crosses, wrapped in chains, and are in some way making acts of penance

~here is a picture from our Easter celebration. that's monica is the photo with me, she came in to spend a few weeks with us. note the artwork in the background came with the apartment and was not chosen nor hung by us, there is a long story behind it suffice it to say we felt guilty taking them down.

~this is another picture in the apartment (across from the disturbing children's artwork in the hall) us with a few of our Ecuadorian friends

~and no photo album of my life on the equator would be complete without at least one photo from the bull fights. it might not be politically correct to say this, but bull fights are awesome. awesome except for the whole part about the bull dying and all that, but watching the bullfighter especially the good ones is amazing.

Well, i could put many more photos up and reminice for a lot longer but i need to get back to my relaxing. only 31 more hours until i have to go back to work.

what smells?

so i was walking into starbucks this afternoon and i smelled Seattle. not just caught a whiff of something that reminded me of home, but full on waterfront, pike place market, that smokey smell from the restaurants alder planking salmon, smell

-i say waterfront but mean waterfront minus the pier funk, those of you familiar with Seattle waterfront will understand what i mean when i say that-

funny how a smell can bring back so many random memories, all the sudden i remembered a time when i was a little kid, probably only 6 or 7 though i'm not positive, and the whole family went down to the waterfront and we went to an imax show on the eruption of mt. st. helens. good times.

i'm kind of at a crossroads, again, in my life, when i'm trying to figure out what i want to do next. i possibly have the opportunity to move into the PICU at my current hospital but the question is do i want to stay here for another year?

my options would be to move to the PICU in august and then stay another year, or i could stay on the floor i currently work on until january then i would be done with my contract with the hospital and could move anywhere i want to. i have thought of moving to new york city or possibly back home to seattle or move out to pittsburgh and work out there but i just don't know what i want.

the thing is, i don't absolutely hate it here anymore. i'm starting to have a life here with friends and routines, but still it's not home and i can feel myself becoming more and more uptight. people here get so angry about EVERYTHING!!!

at starbucks there was a line out the door and customers were absolutely freaking out that they didn't get their coffee the moment they ordered it, there was muttering under their breath, blatant audible comments made to people standing next to them. the girl behind the counter actually forgot to make my drink and i had to remind them (i admit i did get really annoyed with this but i kept it to myself and was very polite) and someone actually turned to their friend and said to them "if your drink gets skipped you need to say something right away instead of waiting until they're in the middle of filling someone else's order" as if to say that i was in the wrong to ask her to make me my tall americano. i swear, the day i become that uptight is the day i move out to the hippie commune on Lopez Island.

in other news today marks the 1 year anniversary of my return to the US. one year ago today i left Ecuador to come back to the states and pursue my nursing career.

i can't believe it's been a year already and at the same time it feels like a lifetime ago that i lived there. i definitely miss it and want to go back eventually. i loved living in a thirld world country!

so today is day number 4 of 5 days off. i have successfully done nothing since i left work last wednesday, i'm thinking tomorrow i will get some stuff done but today is sunday, a day of rest, and i am resting.

this is my life?

typically my days begin at 5:30 when my alarm goes off, i try to avoid the inevitable and generally hit the snooze button once giving me a whole extra 7 minuntes, so in truth i should say my days begin at 5:37. then it's shower, coffee, dress, run frantically out of the house because i hit the snooze button and took to long in the shower. I get to work at 7 am, or just before so as to avoid the glare of the night shift, they like to act like they are the victims because they had to stay up all night when in truth 90% of night shift is made up of nurses who specifically have requested to work nights, and mostly because they cannot handle the stress of a day shift.

after report is done i then face the next 12 hours of being waitress, transport, public relations, therapist, babysitter, secretary, oh and i'm also still the nurse, which means i still need to assess my patients, give medications, get blood or other specimens for the doctors, start IV's, hang blood, change dressings, suction out trach's, and whatever else those crazy doctors have decided they need to do with these kids. (including but not limited to colon clean outs, enemas, describing in detail a patients stool, retrieving "nasopharyangeal aspirates" which is a fancy way of saying they want you so suck boogers out of the kids nose and send it to the lab, all of which things are about as much fun as they sound) the worst though, is the paperwork. i think every nurse will complain about the paperwork. i have been tempted many times to write something like:

Nurse Focus Note: D) Pt. is 6 mo old male, admitted for R/O sepsis, VSS, afebrile, purple and green lesions to body noted, non-tender, round and approx. 3 in. in diameter occurring over total body surface. small bony prominences noted on forehead, appendage from the coccyx increased in length this shift, current length 63cm. A)VS Q4, measure strict I&O, Measure tail length BID, Meds given per MD orders, IVF running, Cont. on CRPO2 monitor, MD notified of new length and lesions, family updated on POC. R) pt. resting quietly with family @BS, no apparent pain or distress. No new lesions noted, no increase in size of current lesions or tail. Good PO and UOP, approx 4cc/kg. Afebrile. Will cont. to monitor. K. Corrigan, RN

i wonder how long it would take before someone noticed it, my guess is never. that's how important nursing notes are. if the doc's have any questions you can bet they aren't going to flip through the chart to find it themselves they are clearly just going to hunt you down and ask you themselves.

this is all just a broad overview of what i do, no one can even imagine how stressful your day can become over something like a baby not peeing for 5 hours and you can't get a hold of the doctor because they're in clinic and the person covering for them is not around and all the third year will tell you is that you need to page so and so for the answer, or a medication that was supposed to be given at 8am for a kids seizure disorder is still not on the floor and the pharmacy hasn't sent it down and now it's 3 in the afternoon and every time you call pharmacy just keep telling you that it's coming, or my personal favorite, when you get overhead paged to go to 4 different rooms, all consecutively done and then the same person pages you to the front desk to answer a phone call....and you are standing directly behind the person paging you the whole time. it's not that i think everyone is mentally challenged it's just that i think they turn off any form of logic or critical thinking skills they may have once had, as soon as they start their shift.

so if you are ever so unfortunate as to find yourself or a loved one in the hospital please remember before you start bad-mouthing your nurse for not getting your jello cup STAT, that she is probably juggling about a thousand different things at that same moment and changing linens, giving baths, getting ice water or jello cups are not high on her list of priorities. especially when she has patient (A) who is receiving a blood transfusion, patient (B) who has suddenly become tachypnic with decreased urine output, and patient (C) who needs to have his trach suctioned out every hour or he will develop a very large mucus plug. I am not a personal slave, i am a human person with dignity and deserve to not feel guilty about going to the bathroom or eating food!

this obviously comes after a very bad week where all of this clearly happened, it was such a bad week that i actually cried a little in front of a stranger, but the reality is that this happens every week. when people get sick, or their child gets sick, they loose all sense of proportion and reality. people begin to think that they are the only people in the entire hospital and start demanding ridiculous things of you. i have to constantly check my emotions and say a little prayer asking God for patience otherwise i will loose it and you would probably find me wandering around the parking lot all tangled up in IV tubing attacking any one who came near me with an ambu bag

nursing is very much one of the thankless jobs, and one where people remember the bad things that happened much quicker than the good, but regardless of all this i love my job. it's definately those times when someone does say thank you after you've given up all hope of it that totally make things worth it. i may have 5 days off and i may be so thankful for them and feel like i totally deserve them but i'm excited to go to work at the end of everything. (alright i realize that last little bit was pretty cheesy but i don't want anyone to think that i hate my job or that i think it's horrible in any way.)

life events

Well it's been a busy few weeks, hence the lack of posts. last weekend was my first weekend off in i don't even remember how long (unless of course you count Easter when i had to call out sick due to exhaustion, i don't though) so i took advantage of that time and drove out to visit Kelly and Dan and the boys.

Finn turned 1 yr old and i was happy that i got to drive out there to see them all.

in other news, i went shopping! oh the exciting life of a single 20 something living in the big city.

what i don't understand is how weeks can go by and i don't even notice. it's been almost a year since i moved out here and i still tell people i just came out here. but when i actually think of it in terms of events that have happened i feel like i've been here forever...well maybe not forever but definately more than 10 months.

ok, i just looked at the clock and it's 9 pm which means it's my bedtime. i have a busy week ahead of me and need my beauty sleep.

oh i almost forgot, i went to the salon yesterday, so now my outside matches the way i feel inside and i am undeniably a blonde. even I can't say it's not! (picture pending)

where does the time go?

i'm back! i don't actually know where i went but i wasn't here so i must have gone somewhere, right? actually i wish i had some great excuse for this long absence but in all all honesty i don't. i just don't manage time well.

i have been working a bit much lately and i when i get home all i want to do is curl up with my Kozy Shack Original Rice Pudding and pray there's an episode of House Hunters International on the tv.

so since posting last i have A) celebrated the Risen Christ B) got a second job at Athropologie and C) fixed my toilet.

Easter was good, i went to the vigil with my friends and there were 2 people being brought into the church that night and it was one of those moments in life when you could literally their lives change entirely and completely, like when the baptismal water hit their heads there was this huge weight lifted and everyone was so happy. it was really beautiful. i was actually scheduled to work Easter Sunday however after vigil i came back and celebrated a little with my friends and i just couldn't go in, i have occasional bouts of insomnia and i had been in the middle of these spells the past few days so i ended up calling in "sick" due to lack of sleep. it usually happens when i have to flip-flop between days and night shifts or i have been working a lot, i just get to the point where i'm so tired i can't even sleep. but it did make me so happy to have Easter off. and i wasn't alone, so it was a good day.

the job though, hmm. not a big fan of working retail. it does make me appreciate my career choice and it only confirms in my heart that i was truly called to be a nurse. i go to work happier knowing that i have an awesome job that makes me so happy. but i do dread the days when i have to go into work at Anthropologie, i just hate the whole flakiness of it all, people saying "oh you look adorable in those pants" when secretly i'm thinking "oh you look horrendous and you need to buy at least 5 sizes bigger to even hope to look non grotesque" my policy is if i can't honestly say that they look good in a piece of clothing then i comment on the color choice or the actual article of clothing and pray that they don't ask me more specific questions. i would recommend remembering this story next time you go to a store and ask the salesperson there if an outfit looks good on you! they do not have your best interest at heart, they are only trying to make money! if you think a shirt makes you look pregnant chances are it does so don't buy it!!! especially if that maternity looking non-maternity shirt costs $98!!!

and for those of you keeping tabs on this story, i got my toilet fixed today! i just flush it every time i see it now because i can. it's amazing how long i actually lived with it broken, i'd gotten so used to it i didn't even remember how convenient it was before when it worked and all i had to do was push down on the handle and voila! it flushed. i guess i should clarify that when it broke, the chain broke, so that meant reaching into the back of the toilet to lift the little thingy to manually flush it every time. not fun.

and last but not least Happy Birthday Kelly!

it was actually yesterday but because i'm a loser i didn't post anything yesterday. i slept most of the day, waking up at noon and then laying out in the sun for a while before i took a nap, so you can imagine i had very little time free to do something like post on my blog. in my defense it was my first day off in many days and i needed it. however all is fixed now, i have posted, i have called, and i have a flushing toilet.

What?

so i woke up this morning to this...when did this happen? i was in total shock. i didn't even know it was supposed to snow!

Working Girl

so by some oversight/horrible horrible mistake i was somehow scheduled to work 4 days straight this past weekend. not only that but the mistake was that i was actually supposed to work today instead of yesterday and so, even though yesterday was the fourth day in a row that i had worked they still expected me to come back today!! i had to spend an hour of my shift trying to find someone to cover for me today. luckily it wasn't too hard but it did take long enough that i started to get nervous and was on the point of a break down. but even still they are making me come in tomorrow and then i have to work on friday saturday and sunday which means in one week they're making me work 5 days in one week! i know people think i'm such a whiner right now because honestly 90% of the working world does 5 days a week, but i'm just not used to it and really this means that instead of the normal 36 hours that i'm used to working i'll be working 60+ hours. so yes, i am whining, and yes, that is obnoxious, so i apologize but really, is it all fair? it's not. in other news, my heat is still stuck on and i live in a sauna and now my toilet is broken. i just don't have time for these things to break!

Missions

So, as you know i went to Ecuador for 2 weeks. one week of medical mission work and the other week of just vacation. it was so amazing and has made me miss it so much. the minute i stepped off the plane i felt like i was back home. all the random things that i had forgotten about living there came rushing back, like how i couldn't just drink the water for fear of acquiring vichos, or how crossing the street becomes a sporting event rather than a simple action, what with all the darting and dodging of cars. or how an accepted mode of transportation is piling as many people as you can into the back of a pick-up truck. one event that happened right before i left was when my friend was dropping me off somewhere in the city and he took my on the back of his motorcycle... while talking on his cell phone...and running red lights...and driving on the sidewalk! all while passing a police officer! seriously, only in Ecuador could someone get away with this. but don't worry mom, i was wearing a helmet.

The week of medical work was awesome though, it always is. we went to the same city that we have been going to the last 4 years and many of the same communities that we have gone to before but every year is so different from the last. there are certain things that you can count on, how everyone will have A)Vichos (parasites), B)Scabies C)Ringworm and D)will want vitamins. that being the case we know that our biggest supplies will be vermox and vitamins along with creams for the scabies and ringworm. it's how the people will react to us that is so unpredictable. the number of hearts that were touched can't be counted, our lives were changed by them even more than theirs were changed by us. and it's always good, especially now during lent, to be reminded how many things in life aren't really necessary. like this woman here, this is her whole entire house. that's it. that's her bed, her kitchen, her "living" area...everything. and chances are she doesn't live alone. i am always so humbled when i see how much of the rest of the world lives and then think about how much i "think" i need. obviously we can all get by with just a little less than we already have.

there were so many children who touched my heart while i was there, i didn't want to leave the country (and almost wasn't able to!). i would really like to be able to go back in the next few years, after i get the proper nursing experience, and then get our clinic up and running. when i was working with operation smile and i got to help with that it was so awesome to see these lives changed and that's what our clinic is trying to become. we've got almost everything we need to start operating we're just lacking a few key things such as money, supplies ...and nurses. that last one was brought up more than once to me...i wonder what they could be thinking? actually that's not true they flat out asked me to stay, not even go back to the US to pack up my stuff, just stay. i was even promised a hudband, that was an awkward moment.

in other news, the heat is stuck on in my apartment and it is now a whopping 90 degrees. i have been wearing my bathing suit with all the windows open as a way of compensating and i seem to be losing the battle.

Escape from Ecuador

ok, so i actually was working on this blog before and then my computer froze and it erased everything. so as a matter of principal i refused to retype my work, however, i realize now that you may perhaps be wondering what became of me.

well i'm alive and back in the USA!

just barely though. turns out when i went to the country they entered me under my missionary visa (i used to live there hence the visa) they neglected to tell me this though. here i thought i was happily traveling as any other american citizen when in truth i wasn't, i was being slowly drawn deeper and deeper into their deceitful web of bureaucracy and red tape.

To explain the situation that exists in Ecuador would take far to long, but basically when someone living in Ecuador, either a national or an ex-pat, or someone living there with a visa, would like to leave, they then need to take their censo (ecuadorian id card) and their permiso de salir (small piece of paper valid for one year, costing aproximately $12 when obtained illegally through a travel agent as i had done, that states the holder of said paper is allowed to leave the country) with them to the airport. at the airport they pass through the immigration line, show their valid passport, their censo, and their permiso de salir, and then are waived through.

to get back to my story, it was saturday night and i was back at the airport for my second attempt to leave the country. this time i was making excellent progress as i had my ticket and there was no delay in tonights flight. i felt as though it would be smooth sailing from then on. i was wrong.

i had gotten to the airport a bit later than the recommended time and so, was the last person in all the lines. there i was, standing in front of the immigration officer. i hand him my passport completely unaware that there could be any kind of problem, after all i was an american citizen. that american passport is like a golden ticket when traveling in and out of countries. then suddenly the officer turns to me and asks if i speak spanish, i tell him some, and he says to me while holding up my visa "where is your censo, where is your permiso de salir?" and i tell in, in bad but completely understandable terms, i do not have them because i was only here for 2 weeks on a medical mission trip.

he then tells me "you can't leave ecuador"

WHAT?!?! i think he must be joking, or at the very least looking for some kind of bribe, but he calls another officer over to verify the fact with them that since i have an ecuadorian visa that is still valid i need to have my censo and permiso to leave the country

i think, that's it, i know how hard it was to get those papers in the first place, a task to difficult to be attempted twice, especially now that i wasn't even living in the country. i might as well start looking for an apartment and resign to the fact that i was going to have to live here forever. then i decided to call my ecuadorian friend in one last desperate attempt to leave. so i call and i frantically tell him "THEY WON'T LET ME LEAVE!!!" and then had the cell phone over to the immigration police.

i don't know what exactly was said but in the end my friend put his mother-in -law, who evidentally knows importnant people in the immigration world, on the phone and whatever she said was persuasive enough for the officer to hand me back my passport, tell me i was in huge trouble if i tell anyone about this, and then waives me through.

so i made it back, got back on sunday and then monday morning was back at work. today was laundry/taxes day and i'm proud to say that i got both accomplished. i know from previous experience that it's not a good idea to let clothes that had been previously worn in humid weather while riding a donkey through knee deep mud sit in a closed suitcase for too long.

STILL in Guatamala

Ok, so as much as i do love Ecaudor the past 24 hours have been a little trying to my soul. i was supposed to leave this beautious country last night at 9.55 pm however there was some kind of delay and the flight was rescheduled to fly out at 2 am. i felt it was in my best interest to go stay with my friends rather than to hang out at the airport for the next 6 hours waiting for a flight which may, or may not, ever leave. once arriving at the aforementioned friends home i then contacted a representitive of the airline to see if it would be possible to either switch my flight to another day or get a better idea of when the fly would truly be leaving Quito. this representive informed me that there was no space on any flights until tuesday at the earliest so i decided that i would just fly out that night whenever my flight was supposed to leave. i asked this kind man if he would find out for me why the flight was delayed and when exactly it was going to leave. he put me on hold for an eternity and then came back to tell me that there were mechanical problems in atlanta and the plane had not even taken off from atlanta and so it would be delayed until at least 4 am maybe 5. he did tell me that i should call at 1am just to check and then last minute he says ´let me write a note on your itinerary just so that in case the flight does leave then they will know that i advised you to wait where you are until 1 and then call´
well i set my alarm for 1 am and call at the appropriate time only to find out that my flight was leaving in half an hour sin yo! i nearly had a heart attack. they told me the only thing i could do was call their 1-800 number in the morning and reschedule a flight. keep in mind they told me everything was booked through tuesday. well this morning i did call and spoke with a woman who was none to gracious and told me that i would have to purchase another flight becuase i was not at the airport. i explained to her that i was advised to stay where i was by a representative of THEIR airline. she then says ´well fine, what´s your name and i will look up your booking´ i gave her my name and she put me on hold for an even longer time than the first guy and she finally comes back and says oh so sweetly, ´you´re all set to fly out tonight, have a great flight´
i accredit the ease of all this to te multiple rosaries i was saying before i went to bed, this is one of those times where i can clearly see the hand of God working in my life!
so i will post again once i return to the where all computers have apostrophe buttons and quotation marks and i will share my photos and the many stories i have from my few weeks here.

Guatamala Times

I do apologize to everyone, evidentally i need to explore the links i post, i never saw anything truly offensive (other than a full grown man in green tights) but i didn{t investigate further, hence the deletions of his link. i am currently still in guatamala so i need to go, i will post some less offensive material shortly, i promise.

Never Never Land

i was sent this link quite some years ago by my favorite cousin, how she found it i have no idea, and in cases like these probably best not to ask. but however it was, she kindly then forwarded it on to me. and now i in turn feel that it's only right to share the peter pan man with those of you who have not yet met him. there's many excellent pictures and apparently he creates music as well. i haven't been able to listen to any as my computer is not allowing me to, and i don't know enough about computers to know if it's mine computer or his that's not functioning correctly.

in other news, i leave tomorrow for Ecuador. i'll be gone for 2 weeks but i'm sure i'll have plenty of stories on my return. i promised my manager at work that i would kind of journal my medical mission trip so that they could print it up in a newsletter at the hospital. makes me feel a little like a nerd or a suck-up. but i'm hoping if i do this then it will make it easier to gather supplies from the hospital throughout the year to send down to Ecuador later on.

that said i still need to pack, currently i have everything piled on the floor of my bedroom. now i need to sort through that and decide what actually should be packed and what should not. i mean, i know what i need for the week we're out in the jungle but then what? my friend and i haven't even decided where we're going after we get back to Quito so i don't know what kind of clothes to bring. and i don't want to be that girl that brings her entire closet for a 1 week visit. although to be honest, i am that girl. and i should probably clean my apartment before i leave too. and i have some last minute things to buy, like i want to bring cartoon band aids down with me for the kids because it really sucks to have to get a shot but if you can put an Elmo band aid on it after it somehow makes everything alright. and trust me, even Guatemalan children in third world countries feel the same way.

things that make me smile

it's just so beautiful.

Auto Repair 101

So this is how i fix cars. i don't even remember how long ago it was when i first discovered there was something wrong with my windshield wiper but i know it didn't take me long to "fix" it. i suppose the only thing that would have been better than wrapping a rag around the piece that's broken would have been to duct tape it. maybe next time.

i had a great weekend in Pittsburgh, lot's of family time. it was awesome. funny how you don't realize what words you use a lot until there's a small child around you at all times to mimic what you say. seems our family uses the word "awesome" quite a bit. i suppose it's better than many other words.

i've been checking my cousin Doug's blog a lot lately, he's on a motorcycle trip basically across the world. he started in Seattle and he's going to end in Argentina, i linked his blog so you can let him explain it better if you like. but i've been seeing all his pictures and it is making me miss Ecuador. i love South America and all it's randomness and craziness. i'm going back down for a short trip in a few weeks which i'm really excited about. i'll be on a medical mission trip for the first week and then myself and my friend who lived with me down there, are going to go on vacation basically. i haven't decided where we're going to go or what we're going to do, my only stipulation is that it has to be warm. (i know that sounds ridiculous seeing as we are going to the equator but it's actually very chilly in the mountains) if we had more time i'd say Galapagos, more time and more $$. it's insanely expensive to get out to the islands for someone who's not Ecuadorian and then there's all the rest that you have to pay for, when all i really want to do is get an awesome tan.

it's time to go get ready for work now, only 2 more night shifts to go till sometime in April. it's not that i don't like night shift, it can be fun. but it just throws your entire life off. i still have no idea when i should eat and how long i should sleep. and i always have to psych myself up for the night, convince myself that this shift is going to be awesome, and awesome it shall be.

what's new with you?

here i am in pittsburgh visiting my sister. nothing new or exciting happening, just wanted to let you know where i am and what i'm doing. yup, just here watching elmo for perhaps the 1000th time. my favorite episode is when elmo is in "lord of the dance"...but that's probably my own personal biases coming through.

the other day we went to the children's museum and my sister forced johnny to strip down to just a diaper and t-shirt under is raincoat to go play in the water room. i completely agreed with her because the last thing i wanted to do was carry a soaking wet child through the museum and across the parking lot after it was all done. but it just made me remember my own personal childhood humiliations, some of which refuse to be forgotten. (i am speaking of a certain incriminating photo that a specific member of my family had blown up and framed as art in her home). guess things never really change.

Ash Wednesday

so my mom sent me this link and i will be honest, i started bawling as soon as the music started playing. i'm linking both the video and the story because it's so beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4B-r8KJhlE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM
it just makes me think of all the little kids i see everyday who are lying in bed all the time, in and out of the hospital. in general these kids have the most awesome families. i am always inspired by the love and patience that their parents have for them. how they can just give and give and never expect their efforts to be recognized or appreciated in a way that we, as people, want to be recognized or appreciated.
Today is Ash Wednesday, i've been trying to think of how i want to spend my Lent this year, i tend to go a little over board with my goals and make things a little unrealistic for me. this year i'm really trying to find a balance between how and when and where and what i should be sacrificing. i just always end up feeling guilty like i should be doing more than i am, because hey, Christ did die for me. I just think about how much Christ has done for us in our lives and continues to do and i feel like i'm not measuring up and i need to be doing more. the problem is that i start piling all these things on my plate telling myself i need to give up everything that isn't absolutely necessary to my existence and then i get frustrated that i can't follow through and then i give up. each lent i generally have to restart my Lenten plan at least 2 or 3 times. but i do so love that feeling at the end, when Easter finally arrives and there's no more fasting or abstaining. you really do feel like you just finished a race.
I need to go back to sleep now, i'm on nights for the next 2 weeks and i have to go in tonight. night shift isn't horrible, but it does mess with your head. i never know when to eat or sleep or get up. and it's always the harbinger of illness in me. in general i try to stay away from caffeine and just drink herbal teas while i'm on nights, and then i take lots of vitamins. i down Emergen-C like it's my job. this combo seems to keep anything from truly devastating my immune system. also i have the country of Ecuador and all it's 3rd world ways to thank, for really boosting my immune system in general. i figure if i can eat a week old chicken that's been sitting out on the kitchen counter for a week without getting sick than there's not a lot my digestive track can't take.

my blonde moment

as i drove home tonight and passed ambulance after ambulance and police car after police car (or rather they passed me). i couldn't help but think how this is the case every night and it made me so sad. because i already feel like DC is such a dangerous place to live and this just seemed to confirm it. and then i remembered.
I work at a hospital, on a campus that has 2 other major hospitals on it, next to other hospitals in the immediate area. and isn't the main purpose of an ambulance to transport patients to a hospital? yes, it is.

My aching feet

so it turns out that your feet can swell to approximately 3x's their normal size when you are either A)Pregnant or 2)working a 12 hour shift that somehow becomes a 14 hour shift. in either case it's really not pretty. i would take a picture to show you all, but i haven't shaved my legs in quite some time and i don't think the world is ready to see that, besides i might get kicked off blogger for posting objectionable content.
well i want everyone to be proud of me, i made it to mass today! it was such a feeling of accomplishment. it's very hard when you work a weekend shift to get off of the floor for an entire half an hour together becuase that means someone else has to watch all of your patients plus their own, that could mean one person taking care of 8-10 patients depending on how busy we are. so i worked super hard and got all my kids ready so that for 30 minutes straight no one had any needs and i could get off the floor. we have an african priest at the hospital who says mass and i love him, he takes the time to actually give a homily and he asks questions and expects responses, he challenges people to make changes in thier lives, makes it clear that there is a standard they are held to, without sounding judgemental. and he gets genuinely excited to see people in mass and makes everyone so welcome.
i must go to bed now, i feel a little naseaus (to tell you the truth it's because one of my families brought in a huge bag of chocolates right at the end of shift and i ate so many that i'm now sick and having flash backs to Easter 1988 when i ate my entire chocolate bunny in one sitting even though i wasn't supposed to and then proceeded to throw it all up.) but i need to feel better tomorrow because i have to go back and do this all over again.

Cheese, it's what's for dinner

Today was my day off, i had such good intentions for my day. I had such big plans. I was going to go to the gym (and get a membership), i was going to try to find out why exactly my "check engine" light keeps coming on in my car, i was going to clean my apartment, and i was going to research long range digital cameras. Most of that stuff didn't happen, I did buy a bottle of wine and some cheese. It was once i got back home that i realized that i didn't have any other food in the house. Lucky thing it's damn good cheese.
I did research the cameras and subsequently bought one, the Canon PowerShot S3 IS, i'll let you know how it works out. I think it's a family trait that once we make up our minds about something we don't see the need to wait to accomplish it. In some cases this can be a good thing, it could even be described as a go-getter/can do attitude, but in other cases it can be more to my detriment. Case in point this camera. Did i really research it enough? Is this really the camera for me? Did i find the best deal? These are questions i may never know the answers to. However, what's done is done and i'll be honest, i'm not going to do anything about it now that i own the thing. I did have the presense of mind to purchase the extended warranty, i say you never know when your parents are going to get drunk and throw your camera off a table, in which case it's a good idea to have coverage for that.
Oh and Kell, I have been thinking about the sewing machine, don't let me forget it next time i come for a visit. i'm thinking the next "craft" i should attempt is curtains for my apartment. Half the blinds are broken and those that aren't are an incredible shade of ugly.
Before i go though, i have to share this story from work, perhaps i blog to much about life at work but i feel like i need to tell these stories somewhere and at least this way you can scroll through the parts that bore you. Anyways, when i was at work last thursday for some reason i was given all the MR/MRCP kids on the floor (that's Mentally Retarded/Mentally Retarded Cerebral Palsy for those not in on the lingo) one of which was a 16 year old girl. Who when you looked at her seemed completely normal, in fact the night nurse didn't even realize she was particularly delayed, she just told me that our patient was a little bit slower than most kids her age, turns out she had the mental age of a 6 year old. Picture this, this black girl, so beautiful, sitting in a hospital bed by herself watching Barney, not just watching but singing along, doing the hand motions, and in general oblivious to the rest of the world around her. She told me that Barney is her favorite show, when i asked her if she watched it at home she told me no, because the other kids told her she was too big for it and they made fun of her and told her she should be hanging out with boys. I told her that's ok, she can watch Barney if she wants to, she's not to big for him, and she doesn't need to hang out with boys if she doesn't want to. Then we watched and sang along to Barney for the next half hour.
It was the highlight of my day.
When I got her all packed up to go I gave her some princess stickers and one of the Child Life workers brought her a "bratz" doll, i have never seen a smile so big in my life! She gave me a big hug and told me she'd miss me, somehow i believe her.

Let It Snow

Day 2 of my new life as a blogger. Things are going well i think, although i need to tell my sister about my blog. She is the one who encouraged me in the first place so it's only right that she should be told about it first.
So today my big accomplishment was making it all the way into work and not dying. You see it started snowing yesterday afternoon and through the night. So as i drove my small 4-door compact car down side roads and through major 5 lane freeways buried in snow i couldn't help but wonder, what i was doing? It had taken me 20 minutes to chisel the ice off my car and then another 10 to dig out my tires so i could get out of my parking spot, now the only thing left was to drive the 14 miles to the hospital through unplowed streets and freeways. Needless to say i was the only person out at 5:30 in the morning doing this. There were a few maintenance workers who were out plowing the sidewalks but they looked at me like i was insane. that one i already knew though.
I love working in a pediatric hospital, kids are so much better to work with than adults. I spent my whole day just playing with the kids, it was great. at the end of the day we got a tiny little guy transferred over to us from out NICU, he is adorable and oh so very small, only 4 lb's. i helped feed him and as i watched him eat i was so amazed out how something so tiny knew exactly what to do even though up until recently we'd been helping breathe.
It is now 9pm and past my bedtime so i should wrap things up. These 12 hour shifts really pretty much beat the crap out of me. one more day though, then i have a day off. what will i do with my 24 hours of freedom though? Most likely i will sleep, although that makes me feel a little lazy when i read my sisters or my cousins blogs and they talk about how they are always out running errands and cooking things, and sewing or knitting or in general being creative and creating cozy little homes. Oh well, maybe i'll do something crafty next time i'm off.

When it's time, it's time

So when I came home yesterday after a weekend trip to visit a friend in NYC, I looked around my small one bedroom apartment and thought to myself "i think it's about time to take down the Christmas decorations"

This past weekend was great, i had three whole days off in a row. that hasn't happened in some time so i took full advantage of it and got the heck out of town. Coming back was so hard though, and going back to work today was even worse. The worst part of the day was when the charge nurse came up to me and let me know that the weather was really bad outside and that the hospital was opening up an old unit so that employees could spend the night at the hospital. I didn't care how bad the weather was, there was no way i was going to sleep at the hospital. In the end, I finally made it home. It only took me an hour longer than it normally does but i'm here. Now i'm going to get some sleep because i have to go back and do this all over again tomorrow.